Persuasive Essay On Capital Punishment

“The death penalty issue is obviously a divisive one. But whether one is for or against, you can not deny the basic illogic - if we know the system is flawed, if we know there are innocent people on Death Row, then until the system is reformed, should we not abandon the death penalty to protect those who are innocent?”, says Richard LaGravenese. The death penalty has been around for over 3,700 years. King Hammurabi of Babylon first established the death penalty as punishment for twenty-five crimes. Now that our world has evolved, whether or not we should keep the death penalty is being strongly debated.The constitutionality of the death penalty also being questioned along with it’s discrimination. Deterrence is considered the most important of the four basic ways of preventing crime. Whether or not the death penalty acts as a deterrent to capital offenses is being questioned, but facts can easily prove that it is not. A former client of a death penalty lawyer and convicted murderer said,

In most states, the cost of the death penalty is significantly higher than the cost of other punishments. For example, enforcing the death penalty costs the state of Florida $51 million a year above the cost to punish first degree murderers with life imprisonment and no parole (Facts). Enforcing the death penalty in all thirty-five states that have not abolished it costs roughly $_________________. In Kansas, the death penalty costs more than $300,000 more than when the death penalty was not sought (Facts). A death penalty case cost on average $2.3 million, three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security for sixty years (Facts). The literal cost of capital punishment is one factor, but another to be considered is innocence and the price of life and death. Once a life is taken from somebody, that action can never be